


Forest For The Pine Trees

by TubbsTheCat



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Oscar immediatly has a crush on Ruby, Qrow finds yet another fledgling to add to the four hes currently babysitting, and also in puberty, no one is happy, poor kid hes 15 and also an old man all at once, ruby's eyes are based on emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 15:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10311137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TubbsTheCat/pseuds/TubbsTheCat
Summary: Short drabble directly following the last scene in season four.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to see this done and couldn't find anything like it, at least when I started with this. So here's some inane fluff yooooo

Ozpin had been oddly silent since they had . . . since he had gotten his hands on his . . . on Ozpin’s cane. the thing was too big for him. In his hands it was like a walking stick but it felt so utterly familiar. The gentle deformities only noticeable after holding it for decades and the soft depression where the thumb of a much larger hand used to rest comfortably. It was a bit like putting on shoes that had once been the most comfortable and broken in pair after a year of not wearing them. Familiar and foreign all at once.

Qrow - Ozpin had told him that before he decided to shut up since the man failed to introduce himself - didn’t once address him as Oscar. The man just talked about people Oscar had never heard of and places he had never been but his replies came easily and without prompting from the voice in his head. It felt like he was talking to an old friend, someone he had known for longer than he had been alive. It was the single most disorienting conversation of his life and despite enjoying it he was glad when the bar closed up at around three in the morning. He just felt dizzy and confused. He wasn't even really sure if he was himself anymore.

Oscar trailed after the drunk out onto the street, studying the cane in his hands and offering no help to the swaying man that led the way. He had been . . . Oscar shook his head no, Ozpin they were still different. Ozpin had been the headmaster at beacon. He had seen countless students become skilled hunters. and then he had seen countless hunters fall or disappear. Countless lives destroyed by Ozpin’s choices.  
 **And countless lives saved, Oscar.**  
“Whatever helps you sleep,” Oscar grumbled and almost walked straight into Qrow as the man stopped dead.

“O-oh! Sorry!” Oscar said as Qrow's shoulders sagged. He looked tired all of the sudden, but he didn't turn around. Oscar wondered if he was just unwilling to face him as who he was, and not as Ozpin.

“Kid, where are you holing up?”

“Uh,” Oscar blinked, “I'm going to try to apply to the academy here. Jaune managed to enroll into my school, uh, I mean to Beacon, without any combat training and I just-”

“No nononono, not what I meant. Where are you holing up tonight.”

Oscar stared at Qrow before he ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don't actually know. As soon as we got here Ozpin told me to check out all the bars near hotels until I found you.”

“Oh yeah?” Qrow made a sound that could have been a laugh, “Sounds about right.” He hung his head and rubbed his temple. “Looks like I found another stray then,” he grumbled so softly Oscar doubted that he was meant to hear it.   
“Come on.” Qrow gestured over his shoulder and started staggering his way across the street to the grim looking hotel. 

It wasn't a place Oscar would have entered willingly. The lobby looked ominous, dim with a glaring woman behind the desk fiddling with her scroll. The walls in the stairwell were only half painted and smelled like mildew, which fortunately faded when they got to the third floor hallway. Oscar was left just wondering why Qrow hadn't turned around and left the moment he saw the first rickety stair. But Qrow was ever the spectacular conversationalist ans Oscar wasn't left to his thoughts for very long.

“I doubt you want to hold up with the remaining JNPR kids tonight so you're stuck with me until we find you a place to stay. You knew Pyrrha died?”

“I . . . yeah. I heard before Ozpin. . . he took it hard when he found out.” A great sadness flooded through him at the mention of her name. The girl who should have been so much more. If Qrow noticed Ozpin's distress written across Oscar's face then he declined to comment. 

“Hmn. Guess you can sleep in my bed tonight,” Qrow said flatly, “Alright this is it. I think.” He jerked to a stop so suddenly that Oscar almost walked right into him again and he yelped in surprise. Qrow turned slightly and looked down at him, his glassy eyes sharpening suddenly and his voice dropped even lower, “Ruby’s sleeping in there. Don’t wake her up. She's been through enough.”

Oscar opened his mouth to ask who Ruby was, only to find that he already knew who she was. “Why’s she here? I thought she would be back in Patch.”

“Oh please, Oz, she takes after Summer too much to just stay put because someone tells her to.” Qrow shook his head and started to laugh at the idea, only for the sound to dissolve into a rough coughing fit. It was loud and violent, so deep that it seemed to rattle the door frame and in a second the door exploded open as a flash of red attached to Qrow. 

In a moment Oscar recognized her.

Ruby Rose.

In Ozpin's mind she was a fine huntress in training, a warrior who would champion her team and, just maybe, the entire war itself. 

In Oscar's mind she was a girl his age. A pretty girl his age. A girl with lean muscles her pajamas couldn't hide who had a red cape around her neck and a red weapon on her back. A really, really pretty girl.

She had her arms wrapped tight around Qrow's chest and was trembling like a leaf as she buried her face in her Uncle's shirt. An expression of concern Ozpin hadn't even seen before spread across his face. He loved her the way he hadn't loved anyone before, except Yang. 

“Ruby! I thought you- woah, kiddo, what's wrong?” Qrow asked. He had gone from a stumbling drunk to sturdy as a rock because she needed him to be. “Hey, c'mon kiddo.” He stroked the back of her head, smoothing her wild red-black hair and pressing his other hand between her shoulders in a soothing motion. “What's wrong?”

Ruby shook her head and balled fist fulls of his whiskey-scented cloak in her hands. “You weren't here when I w-woke up a-and and I thought that maybe it was all a dream and that you didn't make it a-and-” Ruby whimpered, her voice muffled by his chest, “you could have died Uncle Qrow!”

“Ah give me more credit that that. It takes more than that to take out an old crow,” Qrow soothed and rubbed small circles between her shoulder blades.

Ruby raised her face from his chest and looked up at his cocky smirk. There was something wrong though. Oscar's heart leaped to his throat as he got a good look at her eyes. The brilliant eyes that glowed a soft and brilliant white light. Their light burned on her tears and bathed Qrow's face in a soft glow but the man didn't give any outward sign that something was wrong even as he made direct eye contact. It must have felt like staring into a headlamp.

Ozpin might have been able to keep it to himself as well. But that was a self control Oscar lacked.

The warriors. He could remember them from long ago. He could remember Grimm turned to stone and crumbling, and the silver eyed warriors collapsing one by one under the Grimm Queen's hand. “Silver,” Oscar said quietly before he could stop himself.   
Not quietly enough it seemed, because Ruby looked at him with those impossibly brilliant eyes and seemed to notice him for the first time. Her faint smile was replaced with a frown and Oscar realized how tired she looked.   
“Uh, ah, uh,” Oscar sputtered. She was cute. really cute. he was not used to cute girls looking at him and a hot pink flush spread across his face. “Y-your eyes. They’re silver.” 

“Uh,” Ruby said. She blinked and the light was gone, leaving behind a shade of pale gray. She let go of her uncle and dropped to her feet easily. “Yeah. I . . . sure do have silver eyes. And you have hazel eyes.” It was a weak attempt at a joke, Ruby was still too nervous around new people, but she still offered up a smile.

Oscar turned brilliant red and he ducked his head so he didn't have to meet her stare. “It's a rare trait,” he said weakly. His ears burned and Ozpin's voice echoed inside his head.  
 **Oscar, please. This is highly inappropriate.**  
That made him blush brighter. 

Even as Ozpin chided him a heavy hand clapped his shoulder, harder than it needed to. “Ruby this is Oscar. He's going to crash in our room tonight. Oscar, this is my niece, Ruby. My sixteen year old niece.” Another squeeze, this one with the sharp sting of fingernails, made it clear he'd either sleep with his back to Ruby or he'd be sleeping in the hallway.


End file.
